Jim Beers: 5 Federal Agencies

Five simple assumptions 100 years ago started it all. In a national
environment of immigration waves, settlement and development of lands, and
capitalism and entrepreneurship there arose concerns that 1.) Forests, 2.)
Grasslands, 3.) Fish and Wildlife, 4.) National landmarks and historic
sites, and 5.) National mineral deposits were limited resources that were
disappearing. During this late 1800's, early 1900's period were born the
five Federal functions that have grown into the sort of central government
bureaucracies that are no longer appropriate to or supportive of a Republic
with Constitutional guarantees of individual rights, states rights, private
property, and protection of minorities and traditions. I speak here of the
National Park Service, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the US Forest
Service, the US Geological Survey, and the Bureau of Land Management.

The Federal government assumed a new role 100 years ago as a result of the
above concerns. It would no longer make un-owned land available for
purchase and it would begin purchasing and managing certain private
properties in the United States. These lands would be Parks and Refuges and
National Forests and Grasslands that would 1.) preserve historic areas and
landmarks for all Americans; 2.) provide for the needs of birds that
migrated to and from other countries; 3.) manage remote forests and
grasslands to provide timber, grazing, and public uses like hunting and
fishing and camping in sustainable amounts while supporting rural
communities and national interests; and 4.) inventorying all the mineral
deposits in the nation to prevent their depletion.

Who could have really argued with any of this? Egrets were being killed in
Florida in large numbers for New York-designer Ladies' hats. Rough
clearcuts of woodlands without any thought to erosion or reforestation on
steep slopes were photographed by the more sophisticated cameras and
published in urban papers. Both public and private lands were grazed
without benefit of our sophisticated knowledge of the impacts of certain
amounts of grazing at certain times and in certain rotations tailored to
various climates and plant species. Civil War Battlefields and western
geographic landmarks were being developed and closed to public access.
Every one (even including that maven of capitalism Andrew Carnegie) worried
openly about the pending depletion of minerals and ores. Who but the
Federal government could do anything to stem this tide washing over the
country? Does any of this sound like "Global Warming" or "Population Bomb"
or "Global Cooling" or "Desertification" or "Acid Rain" rhetoric? If it
doesn't, it should.

Today, what American could imagine life without these stalwart Federal
agencies? I'll bet that large numbers of schoolchildren and many of their
teachers believe that such agencies and Federal functions have always
existed. It probably seems unimaginable to question their operations or
their missions but that is precisely what must be done.

Forget for a moment and set aside any beliefs you may have about whether
there was any other reasonable alternative to our forefathers 100 years ago.
Set aside the subsequent (90 years ago) Constitutional changes that 1.) made
US Senators no longer representatives of their state but national "Lords"
representative of national causes and 2.) authorized the Federal government
to tax incomes thereby providing a limitless source of income to the
burgeoning Federal bureaucracy. Disregard too the national social
experiments that began 80 years ago and continue to this day from
Prohibition and the New Deal to The Great Society and the recent
Environmental/Animal Rights Movement. Even though all of these things have
contributed to the current state of affairs with these 5 Federal agencies,
they are water under the bridge. Let's look at these agencies today and ask
ourselves, why they exist and what is the alternative?

I highly recommend reading Bjorn Lomborg's Skeptical Environmentalist,
particularly Chapter 12, titled "Non-Energy resources". Although almost
anyone you talk to today assumes that we are "running out of minerals",
nothing could be farther from the truth. This myth (like overpopulation and
climate change fears, etc.) goes back into antiquity. The truth is "The
prices of nearly all (mineral) resources have been declining over the last
century, and despite an astounding increase in production of a large number
of important raw materials they today have more years of consumption left
than they did previously."   Why do we have more resources? Because we
continuously find new deposits, we get better at extracting resources and
using them effectively, we recycle, we substitute, and lastly the demand has
not grown exponentially as forecasted by the experts. As one example,
"since the US Geological Survey in 1957 estimated the world resource (of
iron) at 25 Billion Tons, we have used 35 Billion Tons, and now the reserve
base estimate is at some 300 Billion Tons."

The point here is not to ridicule the US Geological Survey but to question
whether such a Federal function organized to "Survey" the nation is relevant
or needed today. The market (i.e. private enterprise) finds and substitutes
and develops these resources while the "Survey" helps to conceal from the
public the oil resources of the North Slope of Alaska and fights for more
and more budget and power from Congress each year to do what? Surely a much
smaller and radically redesigned US Geology Office with an advisory (to the
government AND the public) is all that is needed to stay connected to the
public's business as it pertains to "geology".

Although the US Forest Service and the US Bureau of Land Management are in
different Departments (Agriculture and Interior) they have become Federal
land-owner behemoth twins. They control millions of acres all over the
nation but primarily in the West. They bear no resemblance to the original
agencies formed to "preserve" and "manage" certain forests and grasslands of
this nation. I mention them together (bureaucrats are shuddering at this)
because they have both "evolved" radically over the past 35 years in the
same sad direction. Today they discourage grazing and logging. They close
down roads and limit access to public lands. They pay less and less "taxes"
(i.e. the initially promised "revenue-sharing" and
"payment-in-lieu-of-taxes") to local governments. They are used as tools
to restrict hunting and trapping by employing more restrictive requirements
(no dogs, no trapping, etc.). They no longer reduce the build-up of fire
material as they opine for "native ecosystems" and declare jihads on
"Invasive Species" while ignoring the harmful plants and animals
jeopardizing hunting, ranching, fishing, logging, etc. They cite
immeasurable tasks (ecosystems, cooperation, etc.) while proposing
measurements far into the future (acres of this, numbers of that) that are
neither realistic nor anything anyone will be held accountable for if for no
other reason than that there will be a new President when they supposedly
"come due". The US Forest Service "Strategic Plan" claims first a role to
"care for the Nation's forest and grassland ecosystems". It's "Management
Principles" list first, "Managing the natural resources of the Nation's
forests and grasslands". They both babble endlessly about all their
"problems" (complex expectations, urban populations, citizen "demand" for
recreation, and development) while whining (the correct term) about how they
will strive to "Sustain the Nation's Resources".

Consider for a moment how they operate today. They are National Overseers.
Their Plans and Principles could very easily have been copied from the
Socialist Plans published in Berlin in the 1930's or the Ten-Year Plans
ground out in Peking or Moscow 50 years ago. That is not dramatic
overstatement. These Plans and operations have all the characteristics of
centrally-planned documents for an all-powerful government that assumes
absolute power over individuals, property, and all other subservient levels
of government. While the dictatorships I cited used arrest, torture, and
destruction to assure compliance, these agencies use Federal funding as
bribery of state bureaucrats and politicians and "partnerships" with radical
groups that provide votes and political support in return for power-sharing.
These two agencies and the land they control should either be 1.) reoriented
to sustainable use of all the resources they contain in order to support
local communities and fund management as much as possible while providing
recreation consistent with those goals or, 2.) leased or sold to private
enterprise or individuals with provisions for public use and resource
utilization. These two, like the next two are only going to become bigger
problems unless and until they are reformed.

The National Park Service began with a "stop hunting" (of big game animals
in Yellowstone) mind-set and mandate. They not only have never gotten over
it, it has spread to every Park and every employee. They have become the
Federal missionaries of the Environmental/Animal Rights agenda. Parks don't
allow hunting or trapping or fishing unless specifically forced to. They
don't harvest trees or allow grazing of grasslands where it doesn't conflict
with preserving the Park purpose. Parks close state and county highways
with impunity. They set their own (Federally enforced) speed limits and
rules on state and county highways in Parks. They claim "viewshed" rights
on what can be seen from the Park. They always need "more" surrounding land
and are probably the worst Federal "neighbor" a person or community or
county or state can have. If you suggest to a Park employee that the Park
(purchased from private landowners in nearly every instance) is part of a
state or community they will look at you like you are nuts. They are
conduits for funds to their private lobby groups ("Historic", "Preservation",
"Heritage", "Societies", etc.) that (like The Nature Conservancy) frustrate
private development and obfuscate rural life as future Federal acquisitions
await funding from politicians running for reelection. They are vehicles
for the most egregious Federal growth proposals: none being greater or more
immeasurable than the infamous "Invasive Species" scam.

Only one week ago (19 March 2007) the House of Representatives passed
(216-10, with every Democrat and 174 Republicans supporting it and only 10
Republicans opposing it) the National Park System "Natural Resource
Protection Act". This will authorize the National Park Service to enter
into agreements (i.e. bribe with Federal funds) with everybody from "private
non-profit organizations" and "private landowners" to "State local or tribal
governments", "other public entities", and "educational institutions".
(Anyone left out should raise their hand!) The three things the
"agreements" will provide for are 1.) "the preservation, conservation, and
restoration of coastal and riparian systems, watersheds, and wetlands" (note
that they don't have to be "in" the Park), 2.) preventing, controlling, or
eradicating invasive exotic species that are within. or adjacent to a Unit
of the National Park System", and 3.) "restoration of natural resources,
including native wildlife habitat or ecosystems". NOTE: "Invasive exotic is
merely a new word of art to avoid the controversy and rightful objections to
any Federal action based on "native", non-native", or "invasive" claims. It
is the sort of word obfuscation that confuses the public and maintains the
"high-priest" status of professors and bureaucrats manipulating it. Also
read the #3 carefully. Is it "native wildlife"? or "native habitat for
wildlife"? or "native ecosystem"? or whatever in "Hades" that last one might
be meant to convey. Nevertheless it is immeasurable and unlimited and will
go on forever with an annual need for "more" and by golly everyone will vote
for all those Democrats and the 174 Republicans because they are all such
caring and sensitive boys and girls.

The National Park Service should declare a religious tax-exempt status and
be done with it. The Park Units should go in with the Forests and BLM lands
and be managed for sustainable resource use and recreation consistent with
the purpose for which the Park was established. There is NO reason why
hunting, fishing, trapping, logging, or leased grazing in Parks cannot be
conducted where feasible. Parks can generate revenue and support local
communities while providing public benefit and preserving national landmarks
and historic sites. In fact that would be the American way, especially now
that we have 100 years of history and the current sad state of political
manipulation and Federal power abuse to cite.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service needs the least explanation of the need for
reform than any of the other 4. Aside from controlling millions of acres,
they are as susceptible to land management non-management as any of the
others. Although millions of acres of refuges were purchased for "waterfowl
nesting, migration, and wintering habitat" the last Administration tried to
change that all overnight into "Native Ecosystems". That will happen again,
sooner than you think. What can I say about "taking private property
without compensation" or the closure of west coast logging and elimination
of southern old-growth forests or the cynical use of deadly predators
(wolves and grizzly bears) to vacate rural communities and countryside or
the bribery of Universities to support the absence of management for marine
mammals or the outrageous use of a bird extinct for 60 years to stop a
dredging project and a runway construction project. This agency is a past
master at doing all this and more while publicizing pictures of young female
employees in uniform holding wolf pups or writing down some "scientific
observation" on a clipboard in front of a mountain landscape. They are one
of the most valuable political props for politicians "running" for
reelection as Refuge ribbon-cuttings and standing next to a guy with a big
glove holding an eagle gets more votes in the city than shaking hands
commuter trains for a week. Whether it is exotic wildlife owners being
driven out of business in Texas or Platte River water users being forced to
reduce their water use or developers being shut down (by the same
"regulators" that knowingly allowed the US Army Corps of Engineers to
pollute the Potomac River by dumping tons of deadly pollution through a
National Park into the River and onto the spawning ground of the ENDANGERED
shortnose sturgeon for over 20 years) the chorus of calls for reform could
not be greater.

The National Refuges should be combined with the National Parks and National
Forests and Grasslands and managed for uses and revenues consistent with the
purpose stated in the legislation that established them.   All the Law
Enforcement personnel and operations should likewise be combined and brought
to a level consistent with the need to manage those lands. The remaining
geologists and research "scientists" working for all five agencies should be
in one unit and share resources as they bridge the area between the research
conducted outside the agencies and the needs of agencies themselves.

Doing this would reduce the shenanigans (budget-wise, politically, with the
UN, with the NGO's, with the University professors, etc.) by putting these
5 together and reducing their budget and personnel. I know this goes
against the tide of "we need to be separate", we are so big now", "we are so
complex", "they shouldn't be telling 'us' what to do", etc., etc. Oversight
would be easier to force on the Federal politicians that have been utilizing
all these agencies rather than keeping them in line. It would also return a
big share of the national life to the citizens of this country. An agency
beholden to local communities (as opposed national and international radical
groups) is less likely to be forcing wolves on people, closing roads, and
starting fires that they then turn around to say that the fire "proves" that
people shouldn't live and work and raise families "there" (so government
should buy it. Combining and reducing them would squeeze out all the
propaganda and lobbying thinly disguised as "environmental education" and
"ecosystem this and that" as well as the mischief about roads and viewsheds
and the "need" for more (which should be strictly a political decision, not
a method of collusion for the mutual benefit of bureaucrats and
politicians). If this combination of 5 Federal agencies has more than 1/3
of the personnel that the 5 have today, it would be overstaffed.

These agencies are THE WRONG MODEL for America. They represent an
antiquated model appropriate to a nation at a loss as to where unfettered
growth was leading (would that they only knew the good and the bad of where
such growth has led). This model today is appropriate to governments
heading to socialism or world government or to dictatorships.

Maybe those ten Republicans (that voted NO on that feel-good Park Agreements
trash) are the place to start. That means electing 208 more Federal
politicians in the House of Representatives next year that understand this
and will stand up and be counted. Ten down and 208 to go: as they are prone
to say in North Dakota "Uf-da".

Jim Beers
24 March 2007

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5 Federal Agencies - The Wrong Model